Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Books: final chapter yet to be written

By Andrew
Stone - New Zealand Herald - Saturday Feb 25,
2012

Printed works aren't about to be killed off by digital readers just
yet, says global publishing expert
The reassuring news about printed books - for those who devour them - is they
are not ready to surrender to the digital tide.
That's the perspective of a book lover who reads ebooks and who sits at the
top of the world's publishing industry.
Jens Bammel, a German lawyer and secretary general of the International
Publishing Association, watches the business of books from Geneva. He likens its
condition to surfing an avalanche, given that the irresistible momentum of
digital publishing is sweeping all before it.
In areas like trade publishing and highbrow scholarly works, the revolution
is complete. Articles go directly online and users subscribe to a database.
The digital market for mainstream fiction, paperbacks and self-help works is
big and getting bigger. Erotic titles are popular too. Bammel thinks the
attraction might be that "no one sees what you're reading on screen when you're
on the tube."
A standout space in bookshops, much to the delight of an industry under
pressure, remains filled with cookbooks.
It's the same in Britain, where Jamie Oliver sells titles by the trolleyload,
or New Zealand, where self-published Annabel Langbein had two titles in the top
10 last year.
"With cookbooks you are buying something that you can't replicate on a
screen," says Bammel.
But publishing cannot survive forever on titles churned out by celebrity
cooks. The industry remains under siege on several fronts, nervously watching
the next move of Amazon.com and Apple, which typically has a dazzling new piece
of technology called iBooks Author - now the target of much online heat.Full interesting piece at NZ Herald.
It concludes:
Bammel, 44, inhabits both the digital and the print world. "I read books on
my Kindle, my iPhone and my iPad. I still buy paper books and really enjoy going
to a book shop and leaving with a pile of books."Book sales* Down 7.2 per cent Decline
in Australian book sales in 2011 * 7.2 per cent Decline in British book sales in 2011* 4.5 per cent Decline in US book sales in 2011* 0.1 per cent Increase in NZ book sales in 2011Source: Nielsen BookScan. Note: NZ figure excludes Whitcoulls

Footnote:
Bammel is in New Zealand primarily to address a meeting of the book Publishers Association (PANZ) next week.